The Prius is Here!

Just a quick post to show off the first day of the new Prius!!!
More to come!

I am flying to Norfolk, VA right now. I wish I had a little more time to prepare because I'm tired. The past few weeks have been busy and exciting.

I can't confess to hardship. Two weeks ago, I was flying to Washington DC for an interview, and now I'm doing the same thing for another company! Such an interesting life trajectory... Work at Seagate has been much faster paced and fun as well. I had to work extra hard yesterday and today so I could take off Friday.

Aside from the nifty developments in a potential consulting career (no firm offers yet), I am writing this message on my new Blackberry! I won't go into the network discussion but I have been amazed at the ease and function of this little PDA/Cell Phone!

I have actually intentionally avoided Blackberry phones for years. I ended up with this blackberry "Curve" after forking even more money for an AT&T 8525. The 8525 is basically a palm-top computer complete with a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. Built into that is also a cell phone.

Both DeAnna and I upgraded our phones to an 8525, but I had nothing but trouble (DeAnna's seems to do her quite well). In the end, I decided that I wanted a cell phone with some PDA functions, not a PDA with some cell phone functions. The BB Curve is the replacement.

Here's a nifty example of how cool this can be: while waiting to board the plane, a young woman was having trouble with her iPod. It had frozen and wouldn't play or turn off. Seeing my obvious technical propensity, she asked me if I could help. After examining the device abd randomly pressing buttons, I handed it back to her sadly admitting defeat.

She called a friend to ask what to do and while she chatted, I grabbed my Blackberry, opened the Internet browser and typed-in "ipod reset". In seconds, several answers popped up. I motioned to the woman to hand me her iPod (amazingly, she did) and I followed the brief instructions. Within 10 seconds her iPod was working again! Now is that COOL, or what?!?!

That's the kind of thing that really makes me a happy geek. I love this kind of stuff! I never thought that real-time email would be so handy - much less email from my business and ALL my personal email accounts. My calendar and contact lists are all sync'd everywhere I go!

Whether you are looking to consolidate devices (I'd not say 'simplify'), or have more advanced functionality at your fingertips, modern connectivity can be so much fun. Oh, by the way, this Blackberry is also my new MP3 player with my new wireless Bluetooth headset as well as portable video player...

Job hunting can be stressful. Traveling can be tiring (just ask Jessica). Having a surpassingly functional, well-designed, connected tech-toy can help ease the load :-)

I'm now going to give my eyes and thumbs a break. I will write again tomorrow to update the status of my interview.

Good night!